


the unquiet

by empyrean



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 17:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16999755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empyrean/pseuds/empyrean
Summary: Geralt's peaceful semi-retirement in the Toussaint countryside is interrupted by summons from Nilfgaard - sending Geralt and Ciri chasing after rumours of a place where people simply vanish.





	the unquiet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mk_tortie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mk_tortie/gifts).



The letter arrived on a spring evening.

There was a soft, early-year warmth in the air, carrying the sultry smell from the olive groves and the blooming flowers over the hills of Toussaint and down into the valley. Geralt had spent the day doing nothing dirtier than helping the hands dig new irrigation trenches. He was content.

So, naturally, this is the moment the Emperor of Nilfgaard chose to send a sequence of politely-but-firmly worded demands, carefully decorated to sound like requests.

‘Well? Are you going?’

Geralt glanced over the top of the elegant, expensive paper. The Eternal Empire’s finest, no doubt.

The fire in the living room's heath was burning down to the embers, but there was still enough light left - and he was still witcher enough - that he could see the edge of Yennefer’s silhouette as she bent over to coax it back to life. She glanced over her shoulder, smirking as she watched his gaze trail back up to her body to her face. He took his time.

‘Well?’ If it had just been Emhyr, he might have been inclined to ignore it. But underneath his signature was Ciri’s own hand, sloppy, scrawling, excited, added her own entreaties to come.

He sighed. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’

She made a sound she would categorically and fiercely deny was a snort. ‘You are getting so soft.’

Yennefer tilted her head, the smirk growing. Geralt felt a twinge of worry at her expression.

'I'll teleport you,’ she offered casually, ‘if you like.’

‘Yen-’

‘Now listen, the letter would have taken a time to arrive. You can keep the sovereign of most of the well-dressed world waiting or arrive in a moment.’ She shrugged, lightly, trying to look unconcerned. ‘There's also that the faster you leave, the faster you return.'

She was right, of course.

‘Fine, Just this once.’

‘Oh, _naturally_. Go gather your things then.’ She dismissed him with a flick of her fingers.

He shook his head, ducking into their bedroom to pull together armour, swords, runes from the chests, all the while keeping an ear on Yennefer. He liked it, being able to hear her soft breathing, her clothing shift, the soft scratch of a pen. Was she writing something? When he walked back in - armed, armoured, ready - she was leant over her desk, adding a small postscript to a letter she’d plucked from her stack of tomes and manuscripts.

She frowned at him. ‘Really, Geralt, would it kill you to enter court properly dressed for once?’

‘I am properly dressed. For me, anyway. I feel more comfortable when I have a sword when I speak to Emhyr.’

She huffed, reaching out to smooth the leather and tucking the letter into his pocket. ‘For Ciri,’ she explained.

'You don't want to come? To check on her?'

'I thought you'd learned she is well beyond parents needing to fuss over her like broody geese. Besides, Philippa knows if anything happens to Ciri I'll ensure she loses more than just her new eyes.'

He didn’t point out how soft _she_ was on Ciri. It was an argument neither of them would win.

‘Philippa still there?’

‘Mm. Still trying to weasel her way in Emhyr’s confidences. She’s not succeeding, but he hasn’t had her executed either. I believe that suits her fine, for the moment.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

‘That would be for the best.’

She skirted around him, fingers twitching as she summoned up the portal spell. The snap, the glow, the sudden smell and presence of magic and the shivering medallion on his chest as the portal opened. He hated this part. He looked down at her.

‘Be safe.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be frightened, master witcher. This poor, _fragile_ sorceress will just have to fare with your brother wolf for company.’

‘Ah, right.’ He paused. ‘Keep Lambert safe then.’

She shook her head and he bent to kiss her, feeling the silken weight of her hair, the heat from her skin, the soft puffs of her breath. She pressed against him, hip to shoulder, like she’d happily climb inside his skin and stay there. If she asked, he’d probably let her. He opened his eyes enough to watch her eyelashes flutter over her irises, like a shadow of trees over violets - and contemplated the consequences of telling Emhyr to find some other witcher to annoy. Yennefer, probably sensing his train of thought, pulled her trailing fingers out from under his shirt.

‘Before you leave,’ she said suddenly.

‘Huh?’

She smiled, her eyes glinting in the firelight. Purple as the first touch of sunrise in winter. ‘Tell me you love me.’

He laughed, ‘And you say I’m getting soft.’

Yennefer shrugged. 'Well?'

'Yen, I _worship_ you.'

'Oh how blasphemous.’ She turned and busily adjusted her hair in a way he knew meant she was hiding a blush. ‘That'll do.'

She waved him towards the portal, and the last thing he saw was the sharp edge of her smile.

 

**-**

 

Yen had been kind enough not to drop him right into the middle of the palace. But that meant after the rigamarole of finding a guard, being sent to a courier, who had to find another courier _(so they could sneer at his gear with company?)_ before he was even allowed near Emhyr, his patience was running thin.

Still, he could count on at least one friendly greeting.

‘Geralt!’

Ciri. Her hair had grown a little, the scar more healed, her cheeks less sallow - time getting three square meals a day with no fear for her life clearly agreed with her - but she was still all Ciri. Standing obediently behind a scowling Emhyr, she winked at him and grinned at his pointed refusal to bow.

‘Witcher.’

‘Deithwen Addan yn Carn aep Morvudd.’ He watched Emhyr’s face tighten with annoyance, heard Ciri’s laugh being quickly stifled into a cough.

‘You took your time.’

‘I just got the letter, couldn’t have gotten here any faster short of time travelling. What did you want?’ Behind him, Geralt heard the guard on the door sucking in a sharp breath, feet shifting as he turned, hand settling by his sword.

‘I see your manners have not improved.’ Emhyr shrugged. ‘No matter - to business then.’

Dismissing the guard - who threw one last, horrified look at Geralt before reluctantly closing the door behind him - Emhyr unfolded a map onto his desk, gesturing to Geralt to look. ‘You know of the high road between Toussaint and Vizima, that passes through Etoila just north of Loc Grim?’

Geralt shrugged. ‘Sure, ridden down it often enough.’

‘There have been reports over the years, of attacks by an unknown creature. Until recently, they were disregarded as fairy tales or witch fever. However, a fortnight past one of my own envoys vanished on the same stretch of road. His escort reported seeing a creature that resembled the reports closely before his disappearance.’

‘What kind of ‘creature’ are we talking about? It’s a lonely stretch of road, plenty of woods and marshes - sure it wasn’t just a drowner?’

‘Pretty sure. I saw some of the reports, they’re rough but all them said something along the lines of it being ‘the fairest creature ever seen upon this earth, a being so irresistable it sang to my very soul.’’ Ciri waved her hands as she spoke, rolling her eyes in an expression that was all Yennefer. ‘It lures people in, somehow.’

‘A ghost or a wraith, then.’ Geralt rubbed his eyes. Nothing could ever be simple with Emhyr. ‘I’m guessing you want me to go get rid of it for you.’

‘You guess correctly.’ Emhyr glanced consideringly at Ciri, who bounced up on her toes and threw a bright, wild smile at Geralt.

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Are you now.’ Geralt looked at Emhyr. ‘You agreed to this?’

‘She is persistent,’ he answered, flatly. ‘Besides, it would do the people good to see and know her, and she has vowed to stay apart from any fighting. The actual task of finding and killing the beast will fall to you.’

Apparently having the better part of a year with Ciri safely tucked inside the Golden City had made Emhyr forget her ability to find a fight wherever she went. Geralt shrugged. She didn’t need his protection anymore. He met Ciri’s eyes over Emhyr’s head.

‘Shall we?’

Ciri was on him as soon as they were out of the palace and away from disapproving eyes, lunging with a hop and forcing him to catch her as she jumped at him. Geralt felt the wiry strength of her arms around his shoulders and gave into the temptation to pull her closer, reveling in the deep throb of her heartbeat and the contented sigh she made in response.

She dropped back down to her feet, and started to wiggle out of his arms - and he let her, eventually. It somehow got harder to let go, every time.

She beamed up at him, the scar and the bright forest green eyes wrinkling in tandem. ‘How do I look?’

‘Like yourself.’

She laughed, and he didn’t elaborate. She could be nine or ninety, Ciri would always look the same to him.

‘You have to tell me everything.’

 

**-**

 

Which was how he ended up being thoroughly interrogated on the ride out of the city.

Everyone from Dandelion to Roche, Eskel to Barnabas-Basil. Ciri soaked up what news he had as if she’d been starved of both news and water in court. Even when Geralt knew-

‘You probably speak to Dandelion more than I do.’

‘He sends me his writing in his letters, now and again. Says I have a ‘more refined mind that is better able to appreciate the subtle beauty of his words.’’ He snorted. She laughed. ‘So he says.’

‘Reminds me, Yen gave me this for you.’ He passed her the letter he’d kept tucked in his pocket, and turned his attention back to the road. The clicking of hooves, the clinking of equipment, the soft rush of wind over the wheat fields was soon accompanied by the tearing and crinkling of paper. Any glances at Ciri showed her smiling and frowning alternatively at Yen’s apparently thorough update of their lives over the last few months, and Geralt settled comfortably into the easy silence that descended.

He didn’t know how much time passed until the quiet was interrupted by a watery chuckle. Ciri was looking down at the letter with an expression somewhere between laughter and tears, her mouth twitching with uncertainty. Bright-eyed, she turned the paper so he could see the short post-script he had seen Yennefer scrawling before he left Toussaint.

 _Finally, my ugly little owl_ \- it began

_I expect and trust everything that is mine will be returned whole. Including yourself._

_Your mother,_

_Yennefer of Vengerberg._

It was blunt, and sharp-edged. There was still affection rising off the page like the smell of lilac and gooseberries. It was all Yen.

The trip out of the city wasn’t like a standard hunt - he had Ciri chattering about her progress at court, grousing at the finer points of etiquette and spinning out the more elaborate tales of betrayal and backstabbing. Careers and lives going up in flames in Emhyr’s court. It wasn’t a standard hunt, and Geralt happily sunk into the peace of hearing Ciri talk about something that didn’t spell the end of the world.

They passed shambledown hamlets, fisherman’s cottages, hunting lodges that slowly faded into tall woods and rolling fields until they drew to the road Emhyr had pointed out. Geralt had a slow, creeping sense they were being followed, but couldn’t hear or see anything for the dense trees. Next to him, Ciri slid off her mount and looked quizzically up at the sky

‘What is it?’ He asked.

‘It’s too dark. The sun shouldn’t be setting for an hour, yet.’

They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring out across the road into the west. It took him a few seconds to identify what exactly was so odd, but when he did, Geralt’s skin started to crawl.

It wasn’t that the sun was setting early. It was there - clear over the hills and still with some distance to go before it sunk below the horizon. It was just dark. As if someone had drawn a shade over the world to keep it out of the light.

There was one other thing.

‘Can you hear that?’ He asked Ciri.

‘Hear what?’

‘The birdsong.’

Ciri paused. With them both silent, he could hear it even more clearly. Their own breath, the jingling of bridles as the horses nosed about in the grass, and even very quietly, Ciri’s heartbeat - low and slow as distant hooves.

No birds. No animals. No wind.

Everything was still as the grave.

‘Geralt?’

‘Let’s keep moving.’

The feeling of being followed only intensified, and Geralt debated drawing his silver just for the weighty relief of having it in-hand. They were only half a league down the road when, at a blind corner snared by overhanging trees and encroaching bushes, Roach reared and whinnied in alarm as a woman bolted out into the road ahead of them. Geralt jerked back on the reins, glancing back up the road to see where she could have come from. And froze.

He was sure it hadn’t been there before.

It _couldn’t_ have been there.

A squat little stone cottage was sat neatly by the side of the road, smoke curling out from the chimney and inviting firelight shining out from the windows.

And stood demurely by Roach’s head, the girl from Emhyr’s reports.

They hadn’t been wrong. The girl was lovely, all golden-brown curls and deep dark eyes, effortlessly elegant as she glided past Roach to stand by Geralt. As he watched her move something in Geralt stirred, like the time he’d made that wish upon a djinn and all points of his compass had become Yennefer.

It was in the same second he realised that it could not have been natural.

She spoke in a low, sweet voice, like bells in the morning. ‘Greetings, strangers. Would you like to spend the night? I hate to think of the pair of you out in this.’

Ciri blinked. ‘Out in what?’

She blinked slowly at them, a quiet beatific smile Geralt had only ever seen on fisstech addicts and the inhabitants of asylums spreading across her face. He noticed her eyes didn’t wrinkle with her smile.

‘The rain, of course.’

On cue, there was a distant rumble of thunder. But the sky overhead was clear of clouds in all directions, only growing even darker as they stood. He looked down at the woman, her unerringly calm expression not even shifting, like she was carved from stone. ‘Thank you, might take you up on that.’

She shook herself a little, tilted her head, and gestured for them to follow her, all in one stilted and awkward movement. It was almost like a marionette being picked up to dance by an inexpert puppeteer. A mimicry of a human.

As they dismounted and led the horses behind her, Ciri drew closer until they were shoulder to shoulder.

‘Geralt?’ She was looking at him, a frown pinching her eyebrows together.

‘I think whatever made Emhyr’s people disappear isn’t far away. Keep your eyes open.’ She nodded, and her hand moved up to rest by the hilt of her sword.

As they drew closer to the house, the oddities stacked up. There were no sounds coming from the open door and unshuttered windows, not even the crackle of the fire causing the smoking chimney. The animal pen stood empty. There was a delicate dew lacing the fencing, despite the lateness of the hour. All in all, it was like a carefully constructed image of the perfect rural cottage. There was nothing living about it.

Geralt was just stepping over the threshold when, as usual, everything went wrong at once.

Ciri’s mount bucked and screamed as she tried to coax it into the pen.

Geralt’s medallion burst into shivering, clattering life.

And as they all turned to look at Ciri, Geralt caught a telltale glow in the sunken eyes under the woman’s trailing hair, the face warping with sudden malice.

All witchers knew a wraith when they saw one.

When he reached for sword, he heard sprinting feet and the sound of a knife being drawn just in time to deflect the worst of the blow that met his back. The worst of it, but not all of it. He could feel the blade sinking below his shoulderblade, and as his sword dropped from numb fingers and a frost seeped along his arm, his vision narrowed until everything was the girl’s saintly, peaceful smile. She stood at the doorway, and watched him fall to his knees. He didn’t know anything after that.

 

**-**

 

Somewhere between a second and a year later, he could hear someone speaking above him.

There was Ciri's voice. High with alarm, then with suspicion that melted quickly into relief. Someone was there that she knew.

Thoughts moved slow as a dammed-up river. _Did Emhyr have us followed?_

A flurry of speech over his head. Geralt tried to follow the threads of conversation but time kept skipping and jumping around him.

Then there was light like knives, and a scent of dust and herbs and death. Fingers on his forehead that had nails that were just slightly too sharp for a human, which should have been unnerving, but even with the medallion lying quietly against his skin he knew what it was.

There was no fear, just-

'Regis.'

The blurry figure he could just make out leaning over him had a kind smile and sad eyes. He looked exactly the same way he’d looked in Toussaint, the last time Geralt had expected to ever see him again. That had been months ago, but Regis was still worn, tired, and gentle as spring.

‘Always in the nick of time.’ Geralt’s voice was painful to listen to, even for him.

Regis huffed out a short laugh. ‘I believe it’s your ability to find trouble rather than any skill of mine. It happens so frequently I’m bound to happen upon it at some point, ‘tis only logical.’

‘So you weren’t following us, then?'

Regis drew back, surprise and embarrassment warring on his face. ‘You noticed me?’

‘More like sensed it, thought it was the house.’

‘Ah, speaking of,’ Regis’ hands were on his shoulders, pulling him upright, ‘I believe you have someone you need to speak to.’

They weren’t by the house anymore, or by the road. They must have dragged him into the woods nearby instead. The campfire they’d started showed that the sky above was still dark, but now the natural dark of nighttime - fireflies idled in the leaves nearby, and he could hear a fox scrabbling after a rabbit in the distance.

Sat upright, shoulders screaming, head aching, heartbeat throbbing inside him, Geralt leaned against Ciri as she dropped to her knees by his side and wrapped her arms around his neck. He could smell the oils she used in her hair and on her sword as he pressed his cheek against her forehead with a mixture of fondness and exhaustion. He felt tired, and old. He’d said that retirement didn’t completely agree with him, but with his edge dulled maybe it agreed with him too much. When he went to raise his other arm, the cold singing pain of it made him hiss out his breath between his teeth.

‘Easy. I gave you Swallow for the injury and Regis patched your shoulder up but I don’t know if that helped with whatever the wraith did as well. Your skin was all frozen. It’s probably best if you don’t move.’

‘Thanks.’ That explained the gritty, acidic taste in his mouth. ‘What else hit me?’

Ciri’s frown deepened, and she nodded across the fire. ‘He did.’

There was an old, shaggy man sitting bound by the fire. More wrinkle than skin, an age-old pain carved into his face and watching them with a mix of resentment and weariness. Geralt sighed, drew himself up with Ciri carefully shouldering him up, and met the man’s eyes.

‘Tell me about the house.’

‘’S mine,’ the man said sullenly.

‘But it wasn’t always, right?’ Geralt wasn't much of a guesser, but long years of discovering the new and exciting ways people cursed each other gave him a solid place to start from. Stolen property was always a good point.

‘Game of cards, twenty years back. Bloke I was playing with was losing and wagered his house as a last bet.’

‘And you won. Without cheating, I suppose.’

‘I won the house! Fair and square.'

'If you say so. The honesty of the deal's not the question anyway. Never make deals with things that'll give you consequences you can't handle.' Geralt sighed. Another day, another curse. ‘What did he say, when you lost?’

' _The house will devour everything you love. Your family will never sleep whole under this roof_. Thought he was talking horseshit. We were happy in the house for a while, kept pigs, had a crop of vegetables. Then it all went bad. My wife wasted away, shrivelled up in front of me. Next spring, some Nilfgaard dogs broke in one night. My girl…’ The man trailed off into low, keening sobs. ‘It’s the house. It _kept_ them.’

‘Uses them to lure more people in. But you’re not part of the curse, why are you here? Why bother attacking me?’

‘’S mine. You can’t kill her. She’s mine. She’s all I got left.’

Geralt didn’t bother to point out that the girl was a wraith, the human part had long since departed and all that was left was a body and bad will. People weren’t that simple. ‘How did you even find us? Looks like it moves around the road, last report had it a few leagues northwards.’

‘It moves around, but I always finds it. I always knows it. It always knows me.’

Well that was alarming.

‘How do I find it again?’ He asked.

The man’s face clouded over, grief curdling to rage. ‘You can’t kill-’

 ** _‘Tell me how to find it again_**. ** _’_ **Geralt repeated, summoning Axii with one trembling hand. The man shook his head slowly, eyes glazed and he murmured dreamily.

‘It finds you. If you need it, there it is. Have a place to sleep tonight, travellers?’

‘You better go, now. But one final question. Your daughter’s name. What was it?’

‘Angharad.’ Dazed as he was, his voice trembled on the name. And with that, the man wandered back into the woods.

Geralt leaned back on his hands, what energy he had draining from him. But his job was never done, as always. He looked up at Regis as he spoke.

‘What do we do, Geralt?’

‘Let’s find the house again. I always come up with my best ideas under pressure.’

‘Can we even find it?’ Getting to his feet - he could feel them both hovering, but when he glared at Regis the man only shrugged and spread his hands with a disarming smile - Geralt led them back through the trees to the road.

‘He said if there’s a need, and then asked us if we have a place to sleep tonight. I’m guessing if the house is looking for people wandering the road, then…’

The house loomed up out of the murk, as if summoned by name. Stood together under the trees nearby, Geralt, Regis, Ciri, watched the girl fluttering around the tiny, empty vegetable patch in a cruel simulacra of daily life.

It was the house, he explained. Waiting quietly, stewing in its borrowed rage and pain until people passed by in need of a place to stay. In need of a home. The girl was an illusion papered over the wraith. Sent to draw people in, in the hopes that it would finally get what it wanted.

‘So what does it want?’ Regis asked.

‘It wants...to remember. The way it was before.’

‘But it’s a _building_ ,’ Ciri countered.

‘It remembers the murder. Violence like that has a way of sticking to the walls. It’s trying to recreate having a family. Summons a dark night, grabs people in need of shelter, but even a regular human can feel something’s not right about it. And then when they panic and try to escape…’

‘It kills them and tries again.’ Ciri finished. ‘So what do we do? We can’t just let it be.’

‘I can take care of it. Yrden and silver, wraith’s worst nightmare.’

Ciri folded her arms, the stubborn set to her mouth freezing to stone. ‘You’re going to fight that thing? Like that?’

He frowned at her. ‘I’m not an invalid just yet.’

Not an invalid, but he couldn’t hide the shaking of his sword arm as he adjusted the way his blades sat across his shoulders. As if he couldn’t see them, Ciri and Regis exchanged a mutual look of solidarity.

‘I’d like a second option, please, Geralt.’ Regis prompted. Geralt groaned. Of course he did.

‘You remember how I lifted the curse from the spotted wight in the Trastamara estate? Had to use the words of the curse to fulfill it backwards. We’d have to give the house what it wants.’

‘Which is?’

‘A family, sleeping under one roof again.’

‘You mean we’d need to stay here? All night?’ Ciri glanced at the house, as if afraid of it overhearing. It probably wasn’t a wrong thing to think.

‘If we want to break the curse, can’t think of another way to handle it. It might be dangerous though,’ Geralt looked wearily at the two people flanking him, 'Can't rightly ask you do to this.'

'Then don't. You're a witcher, it is what you do. I will be the empress of these lands, it is what I do.' Ciri’s jaw was set in a way that he knew meant no argument would sway her. She glanced up at Regis, who shrugged lightly.

'And I stay because I want to. In this you find yourself outvoted, my friend.'

‘You know you’ve lived and died to regret helping me before, Regis.'

Regis just shook his head. ‘You can accuse me of wishing for an altered outcome, but I’ve never felt regret over being present for it.’

Geralt, outvoted, outargued, outloved, rubbed a tired hand over his face and smiled reluctantly at Ciri. 'You're going to be a great ruler, Ciri.'

She just smiled, quiet and confident. 'Yes, I am.'

‘And you,’ he glanced over her head at Regis, ‘you’re just insane.’

Regis’ startled laugh followed him across the gateway, down the path, all the way to the door of the house, where he paused at the threshold, letting the rush of affection he felt for these two people squeeze him until it was almost painful to breathe.

The door swung silently open in front of him. The girl, as whole as in life - sweetly smiling up at him from beneath a halo of tawny curls.

‘Angharad, we’ve come to stay the night.’

She clapped her hands together. ‘Oh how lovely!’ She crooned. Her eyes still didn’t move with the rest of her face. ‘Please, follow me.’

This close, the illusion was buckling around them. Tricks of the light showed a pristine floor and carefully whitewashed walls one minute, then rotting floorboards and blackened stone the next. As she led them down the corridor to what must have been the sole bedroom, Geralt stepped carefully past a bloodstain the size and shape of a small human woman. She stopped at the door to the bedroom, turned and smiled.

‘Here we are,’ she trilled, ‘please, make yourselves comfortable. And let me know if you need anything.’

‘I’m sure we will.’ Ciri muttered, watching the girl’s unearthly, almost-floating walk away from them. There was one bedroll and a vanity in the room, and Geralt slid down the wall next to the door, blade across his knees, and waved Ciri to the bed. She ignored him and settled down next to him, sliding as easily into a doze as if she’d been safely tucked away in her own bed in Nilfgaard.

Regis cleared his throat.‘You realise, of course, this might not actually work. Ciri is your destined child, but we are not family.’

'There was a time, Regis,’ Geralt spoke slowly, ‘I called you _hansa_.'

Regis looked reluctantly bemused, as if he were speaking to a very small child. ‘I don’t think that’s quite what that means.’

‘You died helping me save Ciri. It’s what it means _now_.’

And just like that, Geralt finally understood what Regis looked like when lost for words. He was even feeling gracious enough to fill the silence.

‘So why were you following us?’

‘Ah, well.’ A pause that just sounded embarrassed. ‘I have spent time in Novigrad, and it was there a rumour came to me about a section of the road where people simply disappear. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued.’

‘Turning into a witcher now? How good are vampires against curses?’

‘About as good as witchers are, frankly. While I am unlikely to be killed the poor recipient I also cannot fight what is not there. But I wanted to to see what had the merchants and messengers so alarmed, and well...’

‘Well?

‘I am not technically in Toussaint and no one will be upset by my meeting a witcher by chance by the side of the road.’

Geralt laughed. ‘Missed you too.’

Around them, the dark drew complete - there was a candle still burning bravely in the corner, but it was only Geralt’s enhanced sight that gave him any clue as to what was going on. The house was silent around them - as if drawing its breath for a final performance.

Ciri was awake again. He could hear her necklace clinking over the sound of her breathing.

‘Do you regret the others aren’t here?’

He blinked at her in the low light, confused until he saw her fingers - knotted tightly around Vesemir’s wolf.

‘I regret Lambert.’

A confused pause.

‘Really?’

‘He’s probably back at Corvo Bianco drinking his way through my entire supply of Carvanere and annoying Yen.’

Ciri laughed, wriggling closer and tucking her head against Geralt’s shoulder. It couldn’t have been comfortable. She didn’t seem to mind.

‘It’s probably for the best,’ he continued, ‘Lambert would probably tell me to fuck off, Eskel’d be doing something more sensible and Vesemir… Vesemir would tell me I got myself into this so I better get myself out of it.’

‘That sounds about right.’ Ciri sniffed. ‘Still, I’m glad to be here. Even with the haunted house that eats people.’

‘Glad you’re here too, kid.’ He glanced at the shadows, where he could just about see the glimmer of Regis’ eyes. ‘You too, you mad bastard.’

A flash of teeth in the darkness. ‘Likewise, my friend. Though, you might want to hold your thanks until we’re out of here. Can’t you feel that?’

Around them, the house was shifting. A deep, stirring sense of long-buried anger and betrayal. The floorboards were creaking and cracking, the walls warping, the shutters flapping against their locks like they were trapped inside with a storm. Then the screaming started.

‘It’s just the house.’ He warned Ciri as her hands moved from amulet to sword with a speed that gave him a deep and satisfied feeling of pride. ‘Reliving what happened. It’ll pass.’

‘It’s _awful_.’ The screaming was building to a crescendo. The sounds of a woman in pain echoing off the walls. ‘Is this what curses are normally like?’

The house shuddered with each groan and scream, as if it was trying to exorcise itself. Or was feeling the moment itself. Knowing curses like this, it could have been either. Or both.

‘Can be. It’s a matter of restoring order, reminding things what their real nature is. Stopped a woman from turning into a bird, once. Didn’t even have to kill anyone.’

‘That’s...nice?’ Ciri flinched as though cut when one high, shrill, shriek sang through the house. They were building to the end - the bone-deep angst the house was radiating was becoming so that it was almost painful to breathe, like he’d stuck his head in a river and swallowed one of the bed stones.

‘A rare feat in your line of work, Geralt.’ Regis had stayed in the corner by the door, taking the noise without twitching. ‘Though I recall you telling me that you enjoyed the fighting.’

He knew a test when he heard it. ‘The fight, not the death. Fighting is about surviving. Dying’s incidental. There’s normally a pile of corpses before anyone thinks of calling me, but sometimes…’ He trailed off.

‘Sometimes?’ Ciri prompted.

‘Sometimes nobody else has to die at all.’

Silence fell like an axe as the first shards of dawn crept through the gaps in the shutters.

Ciri stood cautiously, watching the door. ‘Was that it?’

‘Better find out.’

As one, they rose to their feet and crept back through the corridor, wincing at the creaking of floorboards.

And there, waiting patiently at the entrance to the house, was what was left of the girl. It shivered and trembled, lurching forward and then drawing back as if burnt. Geralt looked down at the sad bundle of bones and hair and skin, ignoring the cold crawling sensation that came from being this close to a wraith.

‘It’s time to go,’ he said, gently. ‘Good morning, Angharad.’

Her head tilted curiously, and in the mass of teeth he saw a smile her father might have recognised. With a sigh that sang of relief, what was left of Angharad disintegrated into dust.

And beyond the threshold, across the fields, the sun started rising.

 

**-**

 

In a house, deep in Novigradian territory, there was a house that people had died in, and no one could pass by without being drawn to death themselves.

So it had been.

But then.

Sometimes nobody else has to die at all.

Sat in the sunshine, leaning against the fence post and watching his daughter and friend debate the nature of magic, Geralt of Rivia drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was a lot longer than I expected it to be! It's also a lot more dialogue-heavy than I usually write, but the snappy backchat between Geralt, Ciri, Yen and Regis was one of my favourite parts of the game.
> 
> Apologies for the heady mix different canons, including book references to ugly owls, Yen being Ciri's mama and game references to Philippa trying to set herself up as the court magician in Nilfgaard, Ciri's empress ending and the most recent CDPR anniversary video where Lambert basically hangs out at Corvo Bianco. They're all mushed together in my head, and even I can't play through the Witcher 3 fast enough to check everything!
> 
> I wanted to try to write a ghost story that was sympathetic - Geralt being probably the most generous and sympathetic monster hunter out there. I struggled figuring out what to name the girl and decided on something that would pass for the 'elder speech' that seems to be mixed in with Nilfgaardian. 'Angharad' is an actual Welsh name meaning 'much loved' or 'dearest'.
> 
> Thank you to mk_tortie for the request, and helping me discover how ridiculously happy writing a happy Geralt makes me!
> 
> Also un-betapicked.


End file.
